a box of reel-to-reel recordings of campus speeches by figures such as LSD advocate Timothy Leary, Robert F. Kennedy speaking a few short weeks before his assassination, Nobel prize-winner Linus Pauling speaking on the effects of radioactive fallout a few months before the Cuban Missile crisis, and poet Allan Ginsberg.

In speech after speech, I’ve seen a mad rush to the exits… by the speaker. The ending is perfunctory, or forced, or cliched, or a rote recap of the main points of the speech — but the underlying message is the same: Let’s get this over with.

Which is a huge, huge waste.

The audience has just spent the last 15 or 20 minutes getting to know the world you’ve created and the possibilities you’ve promised. If you’ve told your story at all well, then their emotional engagement will never be higher than it is as you conclude.

This is the time to make the call to action. And not a call to action that’s about you, but one that’s about them. How they can take some step that will put them on the path to a crucial change. How they can make a profound difference for themselves and the world.

This is the point where you can deepen the relationship you and your audience have been building with each other, and vest it with meaning.

If you’re writing a speech, and the sight of the finish line makes you want to rush, get up immediately from the keyboard. Step back, and reconnect with the speech’s real purpose. What change do you want to make in your audience? What change do you want your audience to make to the world?

I figure this one will strike a chord in anyone who uses Netflix on a desktop computer. For everyone else, there’s this version: I drew this on the iPad using Procreate’s pencil tools—so kind of a first. Hence the change in style, in case you were wondering. See more cartoons about social media, business and the way we live and work online at Noise to Signal […]

Today’s cartoon was sparked (heh) when I learned about a new project supporting citizen science (and the professional kind, too): Banu. Founder Rastin Mehr‘s idea is to let anyone make their raw scientific data available online. Once it’s uploaded, others can access it using an API through a Creative Commons license. I’m fascinated by the rapidly […] See mor […]

I drew (well, wrote) this right after walking the book spiral in the Seattle Public Library’s Central Library. If you’ve never been, and you find yourself in Seattle, go—it’s an architectural marvel. By the way, 2999.9 is reserved for authors other than Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck, should that be necessary. See more cartoons about social media, business and t […]

Instead of hoisting glasses of egg nog or ordering in Chinese food, I made you a cartoon. Happy holidays. * * * Wondering why your family was the freakish one that didn’t raise you with the Elf on the Shelf™ family tradition™? Turns out it dates all the way back to… 2005. I think the […] See more cartoons about social media, business and the way we live and […]

(In case this cartoon is baffling.) If I don’t talk to you lovely folks before January 1st, happy holidays and a terrific, bug-free new year to all. See more cartoons about social media, business and the way we live and work online at Noise to Signal Cartoon

Let’s see: my hairline’s been receding since I was 30. I have a 32″ waist and a 38″ chest, which seem to be the first sizes of clothes to sell out. (As a white middle-class heterosexual university-educated cis-gendered able-bodied man…) People don’t always want to talk about how cute my kids are. Canadian Netflix has […] See more cartoons about social media, […]